"How can you be sick of living in Paris?"
Life unravels when American psychotherapist Kristin Louise Duncombe faces being uprooted again-to follow her husband from their secure nest in Paris to bourgeois Lyon. The result is a touchstone memoir for anyone facing a move, dealing with marital ghosts, or confronting the professional death of starting anew.
Duncombe's unique specialty is helping "trailing spouses" maintain their sanity while following their other half around the globe. But she must reconfigure everything she thought she knew about her "expat expertise" when her child sinks into existential crisis, addiction to Lyonnais cream puffs blooms, and tea time is to be had with glamorous French moms whose sex lives include swingers' parties.
This boisterous, big-hearted book provides a compelling glimpse into love, family, and sex in France, and a modern family grappling with the inevitable downs - and ups - of building a new life.
"An insightful memoir of life in France in which the author and her multi-cultural family embrace the wisdom, step by step, that home is where the heart is."-Meg Bortin, author of Desperate to be a Housewife
"Five Flights Up is hilarious and brave. With her trademark honesty, Kristin Louise Duncombe reveals the imperfect yet privileged world of being a foreigner in France."-Lizzie Harwood, author of Xamnesia
"A must-read for any woman coping with monumental transitions, and who has felt they have lost their way along this trajectory we call life."-Samantha Vérant, author of Seven Letters from Paris
About the Author: Kristin Louise Duncombe is an American writer and psychotherapist who has lived in Europe since 2001. She has based her career on working with international and expatriate families following her own experience of growing up overseas as the child of a US diplomat and living internationally most of her adult life.
Duncombe has twenty years of experience working as a therapist with individuals, couples, and families in the United States, East Africa, and France, providing the counseling services for the American University of Paris from 2008 until 2012.
A graduate from Mount Holyoke College, she earned master's degrees in clinical social work and public health at Tulane University.
In addition to Five Flights Up, she is also the author of Trailing: A Memoir, a runner-up for 2013's Indie Book of the Year Award.
She currently resides in Geneva, Switzerland, with her Argentinean husband, two children, and two cats.
